Sri Lanka and the debate on the continuity of the sasana · 2014. 4. 26. · Sri Lanka and...

© Jacques P. Leider EFEO 07/05/2006

Arakan’s imagined place in the Theravada world

Between Burma, Sri Lanka and the debate on the continuity of the sasana

Jacques P. Leider1

Burma Studies Conference Asian Research Institute, Singapore

15‐17 July 2006

IMAGINED: ARAKAN AS A MAINSTAY OF THE SASANA..................................................................................... 3 DESCRIBED: TRACING THE SASANA IN EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY ARAKAN........................................... 9 REPRESENTED: ORDINATIONS, SCRIPTURES AND POLITICS OF LEGITIMACY ................................................. 16 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................................................... 25 BIBLIOGRAPHIC REFERENCES............................................................................................................................ 27

Both in the East and the West, and for a long time, textbook knowledge nurtured a

perception of Theravada Buddhism as a monolith that had been little eroded by time. But

anthropological and historical studies of eighteenth and nineteenth century institutional

reform, intellectual flexibility and homogenizing processes that were shared inside the

Theravada world demonstrate change and have opened up new perspectives, especially in

Sri Lanka and Thailand, less so in Burma, though.

The present paper’s subject falls into this broad theme of the complex relations

between Theravada countries during the early modern period and the representation of

these relations. It focuses on Arakan, a previously independent Buddhist kingdom that

forms Burma’s northern Bay of Bengal rim. Arakan is an admittedly marginal quarter on the

map of Southeast Asian Theravada lands, but has its own history of Buddhism that did not

attract any scholarly attention. It was conquered in 1785 by the Burmese and soon its sangha

was caught up in the monastic reformation process started by King Bodawphaya (1782‐1819)

1 Ecole française d’Extrême-Orient, Yangon, Myanmar.

Arakan’s imagined place in the Theravada world BurmaStudiesConference 12-15 July 2006 Singapore ARI 1


(Leider 2004c). What we may call the “reform movement” was a drift among leading

monastic circles and by Buddhist courts to put greater emphasis on the observation of the

vinaya rules and the textual acquisition of the scriptures by the monks. In Burma, the

inclination for more discipline and higher textual knowledge produced court‐supported

policies in the field of monastic education, new gaings and campaigns of monastic re‐

ordination. The reform movement developed in various forms in Sri Lanka, Burma and the

Tai countries and it took on quasi‐nationalist colors reflecting the pride of one’s own brand

of excellence in the adherence to Buddhist orthodoxy. Among Burmese monks and laity, the

pride of having well preserved the true dhamma nurtured the well‐known and extremely

common belief that Burma was a mainstay of the sasana and a country that had been favored

by the Buddha. In the Sasanavamsappadipika (The Light of the Buddha’s Religion; Law 1959,

hereafter SV) written in 1861, the Venerable Paññasami (third Maung‐daung Sayadaw) was

just one in a row of Burmese authors to demonstrate the unfailing continuity of the sasana in

Burma. An interesting view on the frontline of monastic discussions during the reign of King

Mindon (1853‐1878) is provided at its beginning where the author states that he wrote it in

Pali for Sinhalese monks to make it clear that the sasana had not only been well preserved in

Burma, but rather better than in Sri Lanka.

The first part of this paper starts with the analysis of a nineteenth century text that tries

to posit Arakan with regard to its merits for the continuation of the sasana (See full text in the

appendix). Next we will survey what information we have on Buddhism in Arakan during

the critical period from the eighteenth to the middle of the nineteenth century. Finally we

will investigate the historical background of claims made in our source text as its author

invokes Arakan’s major role in preserving the continuity of the sasana in Sri Lanka.

Our investigation will thus delve into matters of religious identities, historical facts and

claims as well as literary representations and rhetoric strategies of legitimacy that will be

studied within the harsh political and social background that shaped the destiny of Arakan

until the middle of the nineteenth century.

As the questions addressed in this paper are historical and anthropological rather than

philological and doctrinal, the term “Arakanese Buddhism” should be understood in two

complementary ways. On the one hand, its use locates, geographically, the acclaimed

Theravada Buddhist tradition of the Mahavihara mould in the former kingdom of Arakan.



On the other hand, it refers specifically to monastic institutions and common religious

practice in Arakan in the sense that these were or may have been distinctive with regard to

forms of institutional Buddhism found in Burma or elsewhere.

A few words need to be said on the microscopic approach taken in this paper. Focusing

on a particular situation, a particular moment or a particular text and trying to explore the

complexities of a context that is not prone to excessive generalizations appears to me as a

methodologically sound way for historians to explore the deeper strata of the past. This is a

method close to the description and the analysis of the finds of an archaeological excavation.

It demands precise descriptions, attention to detail and a fresh stream of creative imagination

to reconstruct the past and write history. In the absence of detailed investigations and

reliable findings, broader frameworks arguably fail to give due emphasis to the connected

position of Arakan at the frontier between the Indian Muslim and the Burmese Buddhist

cultural spheres. Economic and cultural historians have already presented interesting

considerations on Arakan’s hybridity at the maritime frontier of South and Southeast Asia

(Gommans/Leider 2002). But while better descriptions enhance our intuitive perception of

historical contexts, they have no heuristic value per se. The “frontier” position does not

speak out its own truth, unless we take it as a concept that needs to be questioned and

further explored. There is an obvious need to address the issue of “Arakanese Buddhism” in

the context of the overarching general questions that scholars put concerning the historical

and social development of Theravada Buddhism in the early modern period in Southeast

Asia. But at this juncture, when it comes to the case of Arakan and what little we know about

it, small‐scale investigations offer the best chance to produce solid and enduring results in a

hitherto uncharted territory.

Imagined: Arakan as a mainstay of the sasana The question if the dhamma of the Buddha had been faithfully transmitted over the

centuries and had been truly preserved in Burma was one of the key issues underlying the

writing of religious chronicles in the Konbaung period2. The kings were keen to receive a

positive reply to this critical question as it underpinned their own legitimacy as protectors of

the dhamma, so called world rulers or, as variously claimed, future Buddhas. Traditional

2 Mahadhamma Thingyan 1956; Mèthi Sayadaw 1966; Pranke 2004; Paññasami 1952; Lieberman 1976; Kirichenko 2005a, 2005b.



accounts of very early contacts of Burma with the teaching of the Buddha, going back to the

times of the Enlightened One himself who allegedly visited the country at the invitation of

Shin Punna, suffer from the fact that obviously Buddhism did not successfully take root in

these early days, despite the establishment of relics (cf. Tapussa/Bhallika and the foundation

myth of the Shwedagon and sister pagodas such as the Sule and Botathaung) and the arrival

of King Ashoka’s missionaries (Sona and Uttara). Clear lines of transmission were difficult to

retrace so that later religious chronicles such as the Vamsadipani, the Sasanalinkaya‐satam or

the Sasanavamsappadipika emphatically stress particular master‐pupil lineages all tied to the

key story of the establishment of Theravada Buddhism in Upper Burma: the mission of Shin

Arahan to Pagan and the support that he enjoyed from King Anawratha (11th c.).

Expressions of national identities that may have had little relevance centuries earlier

became important in the nineteenth century as regions and countries grew closer to each

other, and as monks from Sri Lanka, Arakan and Burma, belonging to the same British

empire, travelled to various parts of the wider “Theravada‐land”. In Burma and Siam, the

twin efforts of King Mindon and King Mongkut to reform the monkhood invigorated the

textual tradition and boasted Pali learning3. While such reform efforts were always local and

not connected in their implementation, they stretched in fact beyond “national” borders and

particular interests in an increasingly connected world. Historically, the reform movement

was first of all an internal process of change and adaptation, but it gained pace with the

exposure to the challenges posed by Western colonialism (and particularly Christian

missions in Sri Lanka4). It provoked a crisis of identity and prepared at the same time the

ground for identity building.

Neither Arakan nor Arakanese monks figure in the Burmese religious chronicles. Nor

are there any known Arakanese texts that state a connection between the spread of

Buddhism in Burma and in Arakan. This is for the least puzzling. Without knowing much of

historical details, one could surmise that if neighbouring regions that are ethnically and

culturally akin (such as Arakan and Burma) and boast the same brand of religious tradition,

the representation of this tradition would provide hints at forms of exchange, confrontation

or mutation. This is not the case and it underscores the well‐known self‐centredness of the

chronicle tradition. For sure, to fulfil its proclaimed purpose and establish its legitimacy, the 3 Mendelson 1975; Ishii 1986; Tambiah 1976. 4 Silva 1981; Malalgoda 1976; Blackburn 2001.



Burmese Buddhist tradition as reflected in nineteenth century writings did not see fit to

include the Arakanese Buddhist tradition.

Within the competing and apparently well establish claims, we may easily figure out

that an Arakanese Buddhist monk who came for monastic training and higher education to

Ava around 1850 or to Mandalay in 1860 or 1870 may have felt uncomfortable about the fact

that Arakan was completely left out in the general picture. But what kind of credentials

could, in these times when Burmese monks felt superior to all other Theravadin monks, an

Arakanese provide to defend the historical record of Buddhism in Arakan as there were no

local chronicles at hand and as it had received no mention in standard Burmese chronicles?

The text presented in appendix 2 which kicked off the writing of this paper provides an

answer. In his Explanation on the Venerable Sasana of Arakan dated Buddhist era 2316, i.e. AD

1872, the anonymous author, most likely a monk, states that Arakan helped to preserve the

continuity of the sasana in Sri Lanka. The text gives us first a short account of the life of Lord

Buddha that fully complies with the standard Theravadin narrative. A key statement is made

at the moment that the Buddha reaches the age of eighty:

… thinking that the sasana would be established for five thousand years for

the benefit of the liberation of living beings and that not all the living beings

[able to be set free] had been set free, [the Enlightened One] wondered where to

establish [the sasana]. Seeing that his sasana would be strong at its origins in

Majjhimadesa [i.e. in India], but would [later] perish, he said that he would

establish it for five thousand years in the great noble country of Dhaññavati‐

Rakhaing [i.e. Arakan] bearing the name of Mahavihika5 (f° ku‐kû)

At this juncture, the Buddha’s own words consecrate a crucial link between the sangha

and the temporal power that made the survival of the sasana dependent on benevolent kings:

“When the lords over land and sea who are sasanadayakas will not honor it,

it will decline a little bit; when they will honor it, it will shine like the sun and the

moon. Like a woodpecker flying up and down, [the sasana] cannot be completely

ruined. […] Whom can I now trust to establish [my sasana]?”

5 “Mahavihika” or “Mahavihimka” is a term to refer to Arakan that appears only after the conquest of Arakan by the Burmese in 1784 (for example in the Konbaungzet, vol. 2: 26). It cannot be traced in older Arakanese accounts and its provenance has not been traced yet. We may possibly ascribe it to King Bodawphaya’s taste for “classic” sounding names applied to the various domains of his realm.



He saw King Candasuriya [of Dhaññawati] who was a donator [king] and

had been his friend [in former lives] and decided to go [and see him]. (f°kû)

Here our author refers in merely two sentences to Buddha’s travel to Arakan in the

company of five hundred followers moving in flying pavilions offered by Sakka [god Indra]

and the establishment of the sasana. Following a request by King Candasuriya, the Buddha

accepts to have a life‐size statue made of himself. This is the origin of the Mahamuni, also

called “Buddha’s younger brother”, a life‐like statue of the Enlightened One that became the

paragon of the Arakanese kings (Maung Maung Tin 2004). As the Explanation on the Venerable

Sasana of Arakan was most probably meant for a predominantly Arakanese audience, there

was no need to elaborate on this well known story. Our author’s text concludes with the

Buddha’s return to India and the parinibbana. Then he turns immediately to King Ashoka’s

missions sent to various countries. As we know, Arakan is not mentioned among these and

there was also never an attempt among the Arakanese to do what Thai and Burmese

Buddhist chroniclers have done, that is to identify Yonaka or Suvannabhumi with the land of

the Thai or the Mon and Aparanta with Upper Burma.

In Arakanese eyes there was indeed no need to receive new missions as “the sasana had

already been spread by the Buddha himself”, as our author puts it. Between the lines we

have to understand that according to his understanding, this direct transmission guaranteed

that the dhamma would not be tarnished or altered in Arakan and that the sasana would not

be destroyed.

The last point becomes clear when our author abruptly turns to the four instances

where, as he states, Arakanese kings helped their Sinhalese homologues to reinstate the

sasana in Sri Lanka.

Date Arakanese monk leader Sinhalese king Arakanese king 1 AD 82 Jina‐Man‐Aung with 12 monks n.a. Suriyasiri 2 AD 1207 Atula‐Vijaya with 16 monks n.a. Dasaraja 3. AD 1273 Uttaradhamma with 36 monks n.a. Nga Ran‐Man‐Raja 4 AD 1481 Siddhat‐thana with 50 monks n.a. Bhasaw‐phru

Four times in Sri Lankan history, “Indians holding wrong beliefs” (miccha‐yu‐mha kye‐

kula) destroyed the sasana and each time, noble Sinhalese kings rose up and appealed to

Arakan to send monks to spread the sasana as it had been preserved there.



Beyond these stereotypical explanations on the renaissance and the survival of the

sasana in Sri Lanka, our text does not provide any details on the missions. As we will explain

below, exchanges of monastic missions between Arakan and Sri Lanka are a historical

reality. But the Explanation on the Venerable Sasana in Arakan is a poor and superficial source to

explore that subject. It looks as if the author had not the least interest to provide his audience

with historical details and names. He finishes his presentation by stating authoritatively that

“ancient Arakanese chronicles and histories tell us these facts”. The first mission can barely

claim a historical character as this period of Arakanese history is still shrouded in mystery.

The second and third missions meet faint confirmations in other sources, as we will see

below. Though we do not have any detail on the fourth mission, it is confirmed by the

Arakanese chronicle tradition and it fits into the better known context of Arakan’s early

modern history.

The interest of this text does not lie in the question how true are its claims, but why it

was written and why such claims were made in 1872. We have already anticipated an

explanation by hinting at the Buddhist reformist efforts during the nineteenth century. After

the convening of the Fifth Buddhist Synod by King Mindon, the pride of having reviewed

and fixed by inscription on marble stones the Canon stimulated nationalist strains in

Burmese Buddhism6. The greater facility of exchanges with monks from Sri Lanka and Siam

was positively thought‐provoking and stimulating as far as matters of discipline and text

tradition were concerned, but it also produced a spirit of competition regarding the

leadership in the Buddhist Theravada world.

How does our Arakanese text of 1872 try to outdo Burmese and other discourses to

establish the integrity of the Buddhist tradition in Arakan and to establish Arakan’s status as

a mainstay of the sasana?

The text contests the supremacy generally given to Sri Lanka and conveys two core

messages. 6 The convening of a Buddhist synod at Mandalay by King Mindon which earned him the title “Pañcama-sanghayana-pyu-min” and the erection of 729 marble tablets containing the full Canon (finished in 1868) are linked to the noble aim of well preserving the scriptures. Generally there was an insistence on textual knowledge, a good monk being a monk who could recite the scriptures, able to follow the full set of rules because he can perfectly recite them. By hierarchically organizing the monkhood and by a system of examinations (the pathama-pyan), a better control of the monks was a further objective. However positive the effects of the reform movement may be viewed, it also led to a bureaucratization of the monkhood and with its focus on the memorization of Pali texts, it strongly influenced the common understanding of what Buddhist knowledge meant. The creation of reform gaings such as the Shwegyin, the Dwaya (with its division into Maha- and Muladwaya) and the Hnget-twin has to be seen as a separate development inside the reform movement.



(1) The Buddha has come to Arakan because he wanted to establish the sasana on a safe

ground that India (or Majjhimadesa including here Sri Lanka) could not offer. An nineteenth

century Buddhist audience would have known that the sasana had disappeared from India

and that it had met with troubled periods in Sri Lanka. The fact that Buddha had come to

Arakan could not raise anybody’s eyebrows as the Enlightened One did not merely leave

relics behind that could have remained hidden or a footstep (buddhapada) to commemorate

his visit, but consecrated a life‐size image, the Mahamuni, calling him his “younger brother”

and promising that it would stay on until the period of 5000 years of the sasana had elapsed.

The many miracles ascribed to the Mahamuni strengthened the claims of its sanctity. For a

contemporary Burmese or Arakanese audience, this was undoubtedly standard fare.

Bypassing the fact that the Mahamuni had been requested to leave (read: taken away) by an

invitation (read: conquest) of the Burmese king in 1785, the author meaningfully connects to

two disjoint facts: the continuity of Buddhism in Arakan and its decline in India. It was the

Buddha himself who had foreseen the circumstances and wisely provided for the survival of

the sasana. We are thus offered a message of comfort and reassurance about Arakanese

Buddhism.

(2) The proof that the sasana had been faithfully transmitted in Arakan is provided by

the fact that good dayaka kings from Sri Lanka appealed to Arakan to re‐establish the sasana

there. This second message builds on some historic evidence as well. Though the references

in the text are flimsy, the historicity of relations between Sri Lanka and Arakan as such could

be dealt with as a matter of fact. But they are presented here as radically one‐sided: Arakan

was the giver and Sri Lanka merely the receiver. This is to all standards surprising and does

not match with the Arakanese chronicle tradition itself which refers to missions where

Arakanese monks went to collect copies of the Tipitaka in Sri Lanka. It shows that our author

did not feel any need to balance or adjust the message of his pamphlet and he apparently

wanted to strike at Sinhalese claims of seniority in religious matters.

The first message discards any criticism that the sasana in Arakan could not claim a

direct connection with the Buddha. We may thus read between the lines that Arakanese

monks did not need to receive any lessons dispensed by Burmese Theravada monks. The

second message deals with the critical relationship towards Sri Lanka and establishes

Arakan’s superiority with regard to the country that had produced the written Canon. In our



modern eyes, the radically simple claims of the Explanation sound hollow and we remain

unconvinced. But how did the author try to further the credibility of his claims with his

audience? Like other apocryphal texts, this text proceeds by non‐contradiction with the

respected and fully authorized canonical tradition. The biography of the Buddha is

impeccable. The core message is embedded in an orthodox discourse. Moreover, similarly

again to other apocryphals, the text is not seeking controversy; it does neither criticize nor

reject other positions. It does not contest other claims, it merely states its own. This self‐

absorbedness makes it likely that the author was talking to a home audience. The messages

conveyed were inbound. They could be understood and appreciated by an audience of

Arakanese monks that would have welcomed them because they fitted pre‐existing

expectations and already well‐established conceptions7, but they may not have been meant

to be apprised by a larger audience. With regard to our erstwhile question, we may briefly

summarize that at the time when Burmese monks eagerly posited Burma as a mainstay of

the sasana disregarding Arakan’s place in the propagation of the dhamma, an Arakanese

author juxtaposed a similar claim for Arakan and championed his cause by invoking

Buddha’s stay in Arakan and Arakanese monastic missions to Sri Lanka. We can now focus

our attention on the situation of the sasana in Arakan. Given that Arakan’s imagined place in

the Theravada world appears a far cry from what we would call historical facts, we have to

acquaint ourselves with some of the facts traced in other sources both regarding Buddhist

practice in Arakan and Arakan‐Sri Lanka relations.

Described: Tracing the sasana in Early Nineteenth Century Arakan To the best of our knowledge no Arakanese chronicles of the sasana similar to the ones

we find in Burma are available. No collections of metta‐sa (submissions to the king) offer, like

in Burma, a treasure‐trove of source materials to reflect on religious questions and points of

debate. In an interpretation of Arakanese historiography that we can ascribe to the late

eighteenth and early nineteenth century, I have repeatedly used the term “crisis literature” to

contextualize its underlying quest for defining an Arakanese identity and represent Arakan’s

past. I have stated that texts produced during this period of time have to be read against the

background of a double crisis of Arakan’s long history of political and social disorder in the

7 Limited space prevents us from replacing this text in the broader context of Arakanese literature where it finds a place as a marker of Arakan’s identity crisis that erupted with its conquest by the Burmese in 1785.



eighteenth century and the loss of its independence in 1785. Buddhist institutions and

practice were not shattered by these crises, but they undoubtedly suffered.

The sangha, the core Buddhist institution of learning and religious tradition, may not

always need kings to flourish – Buddhism did quite well in British Burma (1852‐1886) and in

many other places without much political interference or royal protection – but it needs on

the ground a stable village society where an economic surplus can ensure the continuity of

monastic life and learning (kyaung in Burmese means both “monastery” and “school”). The

political background of Buddhism in Arakan from the late seventeenth to the middle of the

nineteenth century displays a film of contested powers, social elite crisis and intermittent

revivals of a strong central power with moments of respite. Bearing in mind that the annual

cycle of court ceremonies, of celebrations and donations had a model character for village

elites, political instability did neither bode well for the royal support of Buddhist institutions

and ritual practice nor for the existence of village monasteries. When the chronicler mentions

laconically that a military commander ‐ a guard of the palace today, a rebel tomorrow ‐

ripped open a pagoda founded but a few years before to empty it of its reliquary, the

description spells, we dare to say, a profound crisis and a loss of moral standards and social

norms. But beyond daily religious practice tinted with the spirit cult, the beliefs surrounding

the Mahamuni continued to materialize the adherence of Arakanese Buddhists to a number

of core values8. Political upheavals could not fully distract from the sense of identity that

bound the Arakanese to their perception of Arakan as a “Buddha‐land”. Wondrous

manifestations at its sanctuary are duly mentioned in the chronicle and reflect acute

moments of crisis.

True, Arakan was not only a country of Buddhists and Buddhist standards. Not only

were there villages on the Upper Kaladan and in Ramree that were predominantly inhabited

by Muslims of Bengali origins; the chronicle also refers to “Indian” and “Mon” chiefs who by

1750 had most probably been arakanized, but whose ascendancy still revealed the foreign

8 It is not exaggerated to talk of a ‘cult of the Mahamuni’ as further research could illustrate. When Francis Buchanan visited Arakanese villages in the southern district of Chittagong in 1798, he noted in his discussions with local monks that “there existed many differences in the religious doctrines of the people”. We find here a Theravada Buddhism that may have been at that time far away from standard Buddhist conceptions found at the Burmese capital. Paraphrasing the words of an Arakanese monk, Buchanan writes: “All that I could learn from this priest was that he worshipped Maha-Moony, a brother of Godoma, but whether or not this term was meant literally I could not understand. The priest said that there had been five Moonies, of whom Godama was the 4th, but that he having obtained Nirban, was no longer to be worshipped. The God at present in power, he said was Maha-Moony.” (Schendel 1992: 68)



origins of Arakan’s palace guards. Social cohesiveness depended on a hierarchically

constructed political order; it was not only a function of diverse systems of beliefs. A major

political disruption ensued with the 1784 invasion, when Burmese troops marched towards a

fast victory. A seriously divided Arakanese resistance by local chiefs subsided, but was soon

tackled and during the first ten years, relative calm prevailed. But excessive demand on

Arakanese manpower both for Burma’s war efforts against Siam and for King Bodawphaya’s

grandiose building projects coupled with fiscal pressure exacerbated the situation. By

thousands, the Arakanese fled in 1798/1799 and later on to Bengal; many settled peacefully in

the southern part of the district of Chittagong, especially in a settlement soon called Cox’

Bazar where the Aggamedha temple, founded in 1799, still commemorates a comprehensive

relocation of Arakanese culture. But after 1800, official British benevolence and negligence

also ensured a safe haven for adventurous rebels in exile who led incessantly violent

incursions into their home land. It ruined the life of those Arakanese who remained in

Arakan while occasionally facing the Burmese administrators with their well entrenched

garrisons, it did nothing to advance the cause of Arakanese independence.

At the same time Arakan was integrated into the Konbaung political and cultural

sphere. Burmese governors left their mark by founding new ordination halls in the province,

royally sponsored campaigns led to a re‐ordination of the Arakanese sangha and, in the long

run, to an integration of the Arakanese monks in the grid of Burmese monastic education9.

The monastic institutions in Arakan became indistinctive from those in Burma proper. But

one should mind the complexity and the ambiguity of this integration as it was not

wholeheartedly and consciously embraced by the Arakanese themselves. We have seen, on

the one hand, that the prevalent discourse in Arakan to explain the origins of Buddhism there

was never integrated in any form into Burmese religious chronicles. But on the other hand,

the Arakanese monastic reform movement that was headed by Ashin Saramedha (1801‐1882)

in his monastery in Akyab inscribes itself into the larger context of the reform movement and 9 Though Arakan’s monastic integration was probably one of the most successful policies of the Burmese during that period, oral traditions tell us that Arakanese laypeople refused to feed the Burmese monks so that they had to cook themselves and cut their own hair. Earlier on, the Arakanese sangha had known an apparently quite visible division between ekacara and bahucara gaings. Bahucara gaing monks are defined by Ashin Candamalalankara, the author of the New Chronicle of Arakan (Mandalay 1930-1931), as monks “who use things that they have borrowed from laymen, who give money loans to lay people and take interest from them, who practice trade, who attend the royal court, who stock fishing lines, fish traps and nets, who attend public festivals.” If oral traditions are correct, they were also astrologers and medical doctors and practised martial arts, so that they were no much different from the Burmese pwe-kyaung lineages that also became victims of the reform movement in the nineteenth century (see Leider 2006, forthcoming).



it had, with the constitution of the Sangharaja nikaya, a tremendous impact on the

development of Theravada Buddhism in south‐east Bengal (Bechert 1977). While in terms of

Buddhist chronology and the spread of the sasana, Arakan was not attributed a place by

Burmese religious chroniclers, in terms of political chronology, Arakan’s succession of

Buddhist kings gained official recognition and was in a way ennobled as it was integrated

into the latter part of the royal Burmese chronicle (Konbaungzet 2: 26‐29).

The end of the First Anglo‐Burmese war of 1824‐1826 made Arakan into a British

territory on the margins of Bengal10; for three decades, it was run by no more than a dozen

Englishmen commanding Indian troops that badly stood the climate. The anarchy of yonder

had vanished and soon the new port of Akyab saw Arakan as a prime exporter of rice. But a

total lack of understanding of the differences between Arakan and Bengal in terms of local

administration and wrong‐headed fiscal policies spelt economic disarray for the majority of

the population until the 1840s. Undoubtedly stability prevailed in Arakan in the second half

of the nineteenth century and Arakan could relish a tranquillity that had not graced the

preceding century. But British commercial strategies bypassed the Arakanese Buddhist

population as the colonizers favoured a massive influx of Chittagonian Muslim labour to

extend the production of rice. This is the background for the changes that the sangha

underwent and for any description of Buddhist education and practice among the

Arakanese. It should help us to approach the few Western sources that provide us with a

look at Arakan’s Buddhism in the middle of the period from the conquest (1785) to the

dynamic religious policies of King Mindon (1852‐1878).

Lieutenant William Foley’s Journal of a Tour through the Island of Rambree with a geological

sketch of the Country and Brief Account of the Customs etc. of its Inhabitants, presented to the

Asiatic Society in 1834 (Foley 1835), gives short descriptions of Arakanese Buddhist practices

and offers an altogether sympathetic account. He briefly portrays the daily life of the monks,

their quest for food, their dress and outer appearance, their “extremely rigid” discipline,

their courteousness and hospitality. While evoking the voluntary nature of monasticism, he

explains that young men take the monastic garb “either from a religious feeling or for the

purpose of performing some expiatory service” being enabled to do so “through the

assistance of some persons who deem it an act of piety to defray the expenses consequent to

10 On Arakan’s early colonial period, see Woodman 1962; Leider 2003; Report on the progress… 1869.



their ordination.” (1835: 30) While he was effusive about the monks and introduced a few

notions of Buddhist cosmology, Foley also noted the superstitions of the Arakanese that

were “part and parcel of this benighted land”. He writes: “Was I to credit all that is said of

ghosts and goblins, it would appear wonderful how this poor people contrived to pass

through life unscathed.” (1835: 86). Foley’s kind description offers an interesting contrast

with the accounts of three Baptist missionaries of the American Board for Foreign Missions:

G.S. Comstock’s Notes on Arakan, Howard Malcolm’s Travels in Southeastern Asia and Robert

Robinson’s biographical sketch of John Christopher Fink published as Among the Mughs11.

Their descriptions are often richer than the more scholarly accounts found in other

publications that focus mostly on Buddhist doctrines. As the missionaries were competitors

in the same trade, they had a more professional look on Buddhist practice and education.

Fink thought that “the influence of Boodhism is sensibly on the decline while no other

system takes its place”. Commenting on Fink’s experience, Malcolm writes: “Though the

Arracanese are Boodhists and as tenacious of their system as others, yet they seem less

devoted to its prescribed observances. Little money or time is spent in religion. I saw no

pagoda in the province, except a small one, left half built, near Akyab; nor any person

carrying offerings, or attending to his religion in any other way. The kyoungs which I saw

are but wretched huts.”

Comstock further noted that “the days of worship of which there are four in every

month, one at each quarter of the moon, are observed by very few in Arakan and the same

may be said in reference of all the Boodhist rites.” He could state three reasons “to account

for the decay of Boodhism”: “Idolatry flourishes only when supported by the Government”,

and this, he remarks, was no more the case under the British government; “as every man is

secure in the possession of all he has” [which had not been the case under the Burmese

administration], “the people prefer to invest their money in trade”; finally, “the lack of

confidence and interest in the religion of Gautama, clearly [is] discernible more and more

among the people”.

11 G.S. Comstock lived as a missionary in Arakan from 1834 to 1844. See Comstock 1849: 238-240 for the following quotations. H. Malcolm visited Arakan in 1836 during a deputation to Baptist missions all over Asia. See Malcolm 1848: 146-147 for the following quotations. John Christopher Fink was a Dutch missionary who started to live among the Arakanese in the southern district of Chittagong after 1821. He lived in Arakan from 1825 to 1838. See Robinson 1871.



“On the whole Boodhism is evidently far from flourishing in Arakan, [t]here are,

however, about six hundred Poongees [monks] … in the province for whom the inhabitants

erect comfortable dwellings… sufficient for their comfortable support”. Comstock’s

conclusion is somewhat ambiguous and raises the question if the missionaries were merely

speaking out their vain hopes and wishes to see Christianity triumph in Arakan or if there

was some grain of truth in their description. These missionaries knew either indirectly

through fellow missionaries like Adoniram Judson or through direct experience about the

flourishing situation of Buddhism in Burma itself and Arakan did not compare favourably in

that regard. Comstock opines that “the Mugs [Arakanese] are more ignorant and

superstitious than the Burmese” and [that they] “are far more parcimonious in expending

money in honor of Gautama than their neighbours on the eastern side of the mountains [i.e.

the Arakan Yoma dividing Arakan and Burma]”. We may comment on this recalling that

decades of political disorder and economic oppression could explain that there was still little

material surplus in the 1830s or 1840s to invest in religious works of merit. “In the mute

majesty of decay stood the lone jedi” writes Captain S.R. Tickell on his trip to the Upper

Kaladan, when he passed the famous pagoda of Urittaung that had already caught the eye

of the first Portuguese travellers three hundred years before (Tickell 1854: 89). Mrauk U’s old

pagodas were left in abandonment as well and they were overgrown by the jungle until

some restoration work was done only in the early twentieth century. Johan Fink, explains

Malcolm, saw only three pagodas built in the whole district of Akyab between 1825 and

1836.

Several accounts mention the traditional schooling offered to the young boys during

their stay in the monastery. But while Robinson (1871: 29‐30; 84‐86) described it merely as a

challenge for the missionaries who could not provide free education on a similar level and

Foley (1835: 31) praised a system that did not make a distinction between rich and poor,

Comstock presented altogether negative conclusions on Arakan’s education while

comparing it with Burma.

“… they are far less inquisitive and intelligent than the Burmese. The

proportion of men here who cannot read is far greater than in Burma. Intelligent

Burmese have told me that in their country nine out of every ten can read; in



Arakan, I should think, that less than one half of the men can read, and am not

sure that one fourth can.” (1849: 241‐242)

This lack of literacy can be explained by the low number of village monasteries and

monks in Arakan. The percentage of monks in the general population was decidedly lower

than in Burma and it was apparently even lower than in Tenasserim, a region that had

similarly suffered during the Bodawphaya reign12. Based on estimations and calculations

found in Malcolm’s and Comstock’s accounts (dating to 1836 and 1841 respectively), we find

that in the whole of Arakan the ratio of monks in the general population was no more than

0,24% and in the district of Akyab, where more than half of the Arakanese population lived,

it was even as low as 0,16%. By comparison, the ratio in Tavoy was 1,59% (Malcolm 1848: 45).

According to A.P. Phayre’s Account of Arakan that reflects the administrative situation in

1840‐41, the whole province counted 960 villages (Phayre 1841). Independently from the fact

that there may have been villages that were entirely populated by the descendants of Bengali

Muslim slaves on the Upper Kaladan – actually it was more common that the village

population was mixed ‐, one could reasonably assume that, just like in Burma, each village

would have had at least one monastery with a permanently residing monk so as to give the

lay people the opportunity to make merit. This was definitely not the case. We have quoted

Reverend Comstock, a credible source, as he lived ten years in Arakan (1834‐44); he

indicates the number of six hundred pongyis (monks) for the whole of Arakan. But that

number may be even too high. While Malcolm reports that in Ramree “which is the

Episcopal residence and religious metropolis of all Arracan, there are no more than two

hundred”, Comstock gives the number of teaching monks as 214 in the whole district of

Akyab13. They had no more than 1066 “scholars”, a meagre figure indeed. Visiting the

ancient Mahamuni shrine near Kyauktaw in 1851, Captain Tickell found only two 12 Tenasserim had once more become a Burmese province in 1793. Its mixed population was severely oppressed during the years when Bodawphaya invaded Siam (1785; 1809-1810) and tried to extend Burma’s control over the southern trade (see Chutintaranond 2005). But Tenasserim never was an independent kingdom and, in comparison with Arakan, lacks the profile of a geographically coherent history. That may be the reason why the suffering of its population has never been represented in the categorical terms that historians of Arakan have used. But here as there, a large, if not the largest part of the population fled (in this case to Siam) when Burmese generals oppressed the local population. According to Malcolm (1848: 45), Mergui counted, as a district, ten thousand people, while forty to fifty thousand had fled to Siam due to Burmese oppression! 13 Malcolm 1848 : 146. Akyab was created by the English as a commercial port and became Arakan’s administrative capital. Its name was changed into Sittway after Burma’s independence. The importance taken by men from the island of Ramree in Arakan’s political and religious history of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries is remarkable and would call for a more extensive discussion. The religious centre Malcolm refers to here was the Sam-khyaung monastery whose head monk belonged to the Kam gaing and was the superior of the monks in southern Arakan since the reign of King Bodawphaya.



“officiating” monks and he speculated that the place was “not much coveted as a ‘cure’ by

the yellow robed sacerdotals who find more gain at Akyab itself” (1854: 98). But while

Mrauk‐U, the old administrative centre was declining, Akyab, the new capital, did not count

more than twenty monks in 1836. We should refrain from making comparisons with Ava’s

royal monasteries, some of which housed up to five hundred monks and students. But

compare the “wretched huts” seen in Arakan with the American Baptist preacher’s

description of monasteries in Moulmein. Here there were Buddhist institutions flourishing

under the same indifferent English rule as in Arakan:

“Still Boodhism is as yet by no means a neglected system. New pagodas are

making their appearances in different parts of the city; there are twenty‐nine

kyoungs [monasteries], containing somewhat more than five hundred priests,

including novitiates, who are plentifully supported. The kyoungs are vastly

superior to the dwellings of the common people, and some of them are situated

in delightful groves with ample grounds. Here and there is a sacred banyan‐tree,

carefully nurtured, and occasionally lighted with lamps at night. In the city and

suburbs are seventy‐eight pagodas.” (1848: 48)

We may conclude that while it had not lost all its vigour (remember the renewed

appeal to monastic discipline exemplified by Ashin Saramedha), Arakanese Buddhism had

certainly been impoverished and diminished as a consequence of several decades of

disorder, oppression and neglect.

We may now turn to the background of a critical claim made in the Explanation of the

Venerable Sasana that states Arakan’s alleged merits in reviving the sasana in Sri Lanka.

Represented: Ordinations, Scriptures and Politics of Legitimacy In our last paragraph, we will pay attention to the monastic exchanges between Arakan

and Sri Lanka as they have been represented in Sinhalese and Arakanese sources. Our

examination will also throw light on home‐grown strategies of legitimacy that were

intimately linked to the justification of the continuity of the sasana and the maintenance of its

purity.

Catherine Raymond’s examination of a Sittway collection of Sinhalese Buddha statues

originating from various places in Arakan has brought a material confirmation of the

historicity of religious contacts between Sri Lanka and Arakan and her dating of these



statues as ranging between the thirteenth and the eighteenth century establishes a rather

large chronological framework for such relations (Raymond 1999).

There is in fact only one exchange of monastic delegations that we are well informed

about, both by Sinhalese and Arakanese sources. It took place at an unlikely moment of

Arakanese history, during the last decade of the seventeenth century, when utter political

instability prevailed in the country. It involved two Sinhalese and one Arakanese mission

sent in the years 1693 to 1697. In his article on the Sinhalese embassies to Arakan in the

seventeenth century, D.B. Jayatilaka introduces the 1693 mission by saying that as “religion

[had] gradually lost its hold upon the people and religious observances and practices fell into

disuse” in the second half of the seventeenth century, King Vimaladharmasuriya II (1684‐

1707) found that “the Sangha had become thoroughly corrupt and unworthy to be the

custodians of that Faith”, and decided to send a mission to Arakan (Jayatilaka 1940: 2).

Jayatilaka, following his unspecified Sinhalese manuscript source, states that the object of the

1693 mission was to “obtain information as to the state of Buddhism in that country”, while

Fernando formulates differently, saying that the purpose of that mission was to find out “the

state of the latter country” and examine “the possibilities of obtaining the services of some

competent Buddhist monks to re‐establish the upasampada” (Fernando 1959: 41)14.

Noteworthy is the fact that the Dutch East India Company (VOC) was heavily involved in the

preparation and organisation of the mission. The monastic delegation composed of

Bäminivatte Disayanaka Mudiyanse, Dodamvela Herat Mudiyanse, Sivagama Pandita

Mudiyanse and a retinue of twenty people, left Kandy in July 1693, then embarked for

Tuticorin from where a Dutch ship took them in eighteen days to Arakan. As the arrival of

both the ship and its delegation were unexpected, says the author of the manuscript, the

Sinhalese had to overcome lots of ceremonial and practical obstacles in Arakan before being

allowed an audience by the king to deliver at last a message written in Pali and explain the

purpose of their visit. With an answer of the Arakanese king, they returned back to Kandy

where they arrived in June 1694. The Rakkhanga‐sannas‐curnikava gives an account of the

elaborate ceremonial procedures to present the royal letter to King Vimaladharmasuriya II.

14 Jayatilaka based his paper on a Sinhalese manuscript about which he does not provide any material information. Fernando’s source document, the Rakkhanga-sannas-curnikava deals only with the first, 1693 mission. On the main events, both documents “agree substantially”, concludes Fernando, while noting a number of differences in dating. Jayatilaka and Fernando’s articles contain unfortunately a number of factual errors regarding Arakanese history and geography as the authors seem unable to clearly differentiate between Arakan and Burma.



According to Jayatilaka’s source, the Arakanese king promised his help in the official reply

prepared for the Sinhalese delegates.

Two years later, the same king of Kandy sent once more a delegation of five monks to

Arakan15 with valuable presents and 550 sets of the eight requisites; they were received in

audience by King Marumpiya and instructions were given to send a sizable group of fully

ordained bhikkhus to Sri Lanka. Together with the Arakanese monk delegation, the Sinhalese

envoys returned to Kandy, most probably in two Dutch ships16. The Sinhalese source states

that the Arakanese monks numbering thirty‐three bhikkhus were escorted in a magnificent

procession to the capital, lodged at Malvatte Vihare and received in audience by the King in

front of the Dalada Maligawa, the Temple of the Tooth.

Historians of Sri Lanka have focused their attention on the embassies from a purely

Sinhalese point of view. Neither Jayatilaka nor Fernando cared about providing their readers

with a bit of information about the kingdom of Arakan. None of the two authors seems to

have been the least surprised by the fact that the king of Kandy had to send two missions to

Arakan while one mission should in normal conditions have been able to do the job. Their

lack of interest has veiled more general questions regarding the religious exchanges. But

what is more damaging is, as we will show, the fact that it has obscured the historical truth.

As a historian of Arakan, I have always been surprised that the king of Kandy opted

for Arakan to request a chapter of monks for reviving the upasampada ordination. From a

formal point of view, the official Sinhalese delegation transmitted a request from a king to

another king17. While it seems perfectly understandable that the Sinhalese king wanted to

obtain first of all information on the state of the sasana in Arakan, it would seem as obvious

to obtain beforehand some information about the king and the kingdom he was dealing

with. Eventually he did not seem to care or is it that King Vimaladharmasuriya was lulled by

false reports?

A few glimpses from the Arakanese chronicle may suffice to provide a less than

favorable picture of Arakan’s political situation during the years 1693 to 1697

15 The delegation was composed of the three monks sent in 1693 and Gampha Vijetunga Mudiyanse and Galagama Mohottala. 16 The Arakanese monks returned later on a Dutch ship to Arakan. See Fernando 1959: 46 and fn. 36. Nga Me’s Arakanese chronicle [hereafter referred to as “the Arakanese chronicle”] mentions the arrival of the Sinhalese delegation on two ships. 17 The Arakanese chronicle account does not refer to the monks as such, but says “the ambassadors of the King of Lankadipa-sihala”.



(Candamalalankara 1931, vol.2: 228‐233). At the death of the great Candasudhamma (1652‐

1684), the coffers of the royal treasury were empty18. After the loss of the port of Chittagong

to the Mughals in 1666, royal trade revenues had declined and it was impossible for the

kings to maintain the elaborate military establishment that had been built up during the

decades of prosperity in the early seventeenth century. After 1684, the royal palace guards

took the power at the court and until 1710, their officers installed and dethroned the kings at

will and at an appalling speed. Unsurprisingly the puppet kings faced constant revolts of

dissident lords and local military commanders. In 1692, Manidatta, an elder son of

Candasudhamma that had earlier been bypassed, was made king with the title

Manisudhamma19. In less than two years, he was three times installed in the palace and three

times dethroned, alternating with his predecessor, Waradhamma, a much younger brother!

Jayatilaka’s Sinhalese source text emphasizes, as we have seen, the delay of a royal audience.

There is no surprise to that.

When the Sinhalese embassy arrived, the men in power were not only suspicious of the

embassy’s motives, but they apparently had no idea how to react. The so called “wise men”

(royal counselors) at the court were discussing with Manisudhamma how to handle the

situation. The decision was finally taken to improvise an audience with a fake king,

Mahajeyya, a general, being the protagonist. He kindly received the embassy and let the

ambassadors make their request, a request, says the Arakanese chronicler, that

Manisudhamma straightly refused to grant! The Sinhalese embassy would have to return

home unsuccessful. But could a high‐caliber Sinhalese embassy return to Kandy with empty

hands? The elaborate description in the Rakkhanga‐sannas‐curnikava shows that a letter was

indeed remitted to King Vimaladharmasuriya II. It can only have been a fake. But for what

reasons were the Sinhalese ambassadors sent away without a positive reply? Were there no

competent monks at hand? The Arakanese chronicle description raises more questions than

we are able to answer. Why did Manisudhamma not meet the ambassadors himself? Was he

too incompetent to do so? In 1693, he had already been dethroned and re‐installed a first

time. If Mahajeyya actually one of the strong men in the background preferring to handle

this sensitive matter himself, why does the chronicle refer the responsibility of the refusal to

the nominal king? 18 For an overview of Arakan’s political and economic history, see Leider 2002; 2004a. 19 On his reign, see Candamalalankara 1931, vol. II, p. 228-229.



One may quite easily conclude from all this that Arakan was, in the first place, not the

country to go to. Who had suggested Arakan to find monks to revive the upasampada? It has

generally been understood that the Dutch East India Company (VOC) strongly supported the

revival of Buddhist monasticism as part of a strategy to contain Portuguese Catholicism and

the VOC may have seen its support as part of a goodwill policy to compensate by diplomacy

of religious means the rigors of their monopolistic policies that hurt Kandyan trade

interests20. Had Arakan been suggested to the King of Kandy as a mainstay of the sasana by

Dutch traders, though they knew that Arakan’s political situation was then entirely

unpredictable?

Starting from all this, it is stimulating to reflect on the second mission of 1696‐1697, led

by exactly the same venerable monks who had to endure the disaster of the first mission and

who apparently had tried to safe their faces with a faked letter from the Arakanese king.

How could they explain to Vimaladharmasuriya II that Manisudhamma had not sent any

Arakanese monks along with them?

While the Sinhalese sources make a lot of noise around the first mission with its faked

reply, ‐ Jayatilaka’s manuscript suggesting even that after initial delays, the Sinhalese envoys

were given a splendid and generous reception ‐, the second, successful mission seems to

have kept a lower profile21. About the 1696 mission, the Arakanese chronicle contains

information that contributes some correctives to Jayatilaka’s manuscript description.

Politically speaking, Arakan was not really in any better shape by then. At the time the

Sinhalese envoys left Kandy, Noratha, a prince, fourteen years of age, was forced to enter

monkhood after spending two weeks as king in the palace. An elderly monk, Gu‐phru, who

was not of royal ascendancy, was then disrobed and installed as king with the title

Marumpiya22. He started his reign by disrobing and killing the young Noratha a few days

after taking power! When the Sinhalese embassy arrived on two Dutch ships, Marumpiya

agreed to their request to send a group of Arakanese sasanapyu (missionary) monks to Kandy

to purify the sasana. They left in December 1696 under the leadership of the Sattathana

Sayadaw Indamañju and the Laung‐krak Sayadaw (respectively the “Santana” and the

20 On Dutch-Kandyan relations, see Silva 1981: 151-157. 21 The Rakkhanga-sannas-curnikava contains no information at all and Jayatilaka’s manuscript is, as he writes, “exceedingly brief” on this second mission. 22 Various spellings exist, Mayuppiya (Phayre), Moraopi (Paton), Moeroepia (Dutch sources). On the reign of this king, see Candamalalankara 1931, vol. 2: 230-234.



“Lokaraga‐pudgala” of Jayatilaka’s manuscript). After purifying the sasana, they ordained a

great number of monks, says the chronicler. When they wanted to visit the famous Tooth

relic in the city of Anuradha (?), the guardians refused to open the locks to let them see it.

But when the Sattathana Sayadaw paid reverence to the Enlightened One by reciting the

“gatha starting with the verses rajanatala‐âkâsam‐nakkhattâraparikkhittam”, the locks opened

automatically and the monks could pay homage to the tooth relic23. Before returning to

Arakan, the missionary monks also paid a visit to the Buddha’s footprint on Mount

Sumanakuta and composed two stanzas (quoted in the chronicle) that were recited by the

monks in homage to the Buddhapada.

These descriptions may elicit a smile but they do not tell us much about the situation of

the sasana in Arakan in those troubled times. The final success of the 1696‐1697 missions

reflects nonetheless positively on the Arakanese sangha as it seems to indicate that the

standards of monastic education, discipline and ordination had not been harmed by the

political insecurity at the centre of the kingdom. With reference to what is stated in the

Culavamsa (hereafter CV) about these missions and the ordinations performed, Sinhalese

historians have commented upon the fact that the higher ordination was specifically

performed on the sons of noble families, showing a general trend of the Sangha to make class

and caste distinctions (Ilangasinha 1992 : 84). Malalgoda notes that Gammulle Ratanapala, a

Sinhalese author of the late eighteenth century also questioned the moral motives of the re‐

ordination linking it with economic interests of “a few influential monks”. He observes that

the re‐introduction of the upasampada ordination in 1697 had only a very limited temporary

effect as it became soon again impossible for a samanera to obtain the higher ordination

(Malalgoda 1976: 57). His caveat that “there is no evidence that the Arakanese monks

remained in the island in order to instruct their Sinhalese pupils in the dhamma and the

vinaya” is nevertheless contradicted by the evidence of the Arakanese chronicle.

In a similar context of the decline of higher Buddhist monasticism, the CV (94:15‐22)

mentions an official request by Vimaladharmasuriya I (1591‐1604) to King Minrajagri (1593‐

1612) to send Arakanese monks to Kandy to revive the upasampada ordination. This request is

also mentioned by the Arakanese chronicle which tells us that twenty bhikkhus under the

23 This earned the miraculous monk the sobriquet “Sattathana-Open-the-lock” continues our chronicler.



leadership of the Myauk‐tanzaung Sayadaw Candavilasa24 and the Venerable Nandicakka

(singularly mentioned in the CV) went to Sri Lanka. Confusingly, the dates of the two

sources are not the same, the CV has 1596 and the Arakanese chronicle, 1606. The last date is

most probably wrong as it does not match with the Kandyan king’s regnal dates. Setting the

Sinhalese request in an Arakanese context, it is easier to accommodate than the request made

about a hundred years later. Under the reign of King Minrajagri, Arakan reached the apogee

of its territorial expansion. In southeastern Bengal, the port of Chittagong was fully under its

control and trade revenues filled the royal treasury. Minrajagri had his share in the ruin of

the Burmese First Taungu dynasty (fall of the capital Pegu after a siege in 1599) and for over

a decade, Syriam, Burma’s most important port, was run by Felipe de Brito, a Portuguese

captain who had made a career in Arakan’s navy. Arakan became a regional power broker

and controlled the slave trade in the northern Bay of Bengal. It is not difficult to figure out

that the news about this powerful Buddhist kingdom spread to Sri Lanka and made it appear

to Vimaladharmasuriya I as an attractive place from where Buddhist missionary monks

could be requested. The Minrajagri‐satam, a contemporary Arakanese source, emphasizes the

religious reform policy of King Minrajagri that favored the forest‐dwelling monks who

followed more strictly the rules of the vinaya. Curiously, it does not mention the request of

the Sinhalese king and Minrajagri’s reply. Can it be that the lingering fame of this great

period of Arakanese history influenced a hundred years later Vimaladharmasuriya II’s

decision to make a request for bhikkhus to an Arakanese king?

The requests for Arakanese missionary monks by King Vimaladharmasurya I and II

are marginally mentioned in the SV (Law 1959: 30), but amazingly not in our Arakanese

pamphlet, the Explanation on the Venerable Sasana of Arakan. It is precisely these historically

well attested missions that give some credibility to the claim that in earlier times, Arakan had

contributed to the continuity of the sasana in Sri Lanka.

Moving back in time, we need to discuss the evidence on fifteenth‐century missions

about which we only know from Arakanese sources. In his 1891 report on the Mahamuni

pagoda, E. Forchhammer quotes an Arakanese text that has since become unavailable (the

Sappadanapakarana) (Forchhammer 1891: 2‐5). It says that King Min Khari (1433‐1459)

obtained a tipitaka from Sri Lanka. The Arakanese chronicle states that King Bhasawphru

24 C. Raymond notes variants of this name : “Candivisala” and “Candadilasa” (Raymond 1999).



(1459‐1481) also obtained a tipitaka from Sri Lanka in 147525. These missions put Arakan in

the position of a receiver. The kingdom with its new capital founded in 1433 was, during the

fifteenth century, a burgeoning but still rather weak principality that stood in the shadow of

powerful neighbors, in the west, the prestigious sultanate of Bengal and in the east, the

kingdom of Ava. Obtaining a tipitaka or claiming to have obtained a tipitaka from Sri Lanka

must have served the purpose of legitimating the claims of Buddhist orthodoxy and fulfilling

the need for the king to establish himself as a protector and supporter of the sasana. It is not

at all unlikely that Arakanese monks went to Sri Lanka in the fifteenth century, but we have

no means to check the historicity of these missions. Intuitively we may interpret their

claimed historicity with regard to the important 1475 mission sent to Sri Lanka by King

Dhammazedi (aka Ramadhipati, 1472‐1492) which led to the adoption of the Sinhalese style

ordination of the sangha in the Mon country. For the purpose, a new ordination ground was

established in Pegu in 1476 and significantly named ‘Kalyani’ (The Kalyani Inscriptions…

1892). It is important to note that there are no earlier religious missions mentioned in the

Arakanese chronicles.

Another Arakanese source, the above mentioned Minrajagri‐Satam (hereafter MRCT)

refers to several missions sent to Sri Lanka to check the sacred Pali texts as they were kept in

Arakan against the texts as they existed in Sri Lanka. The MRCT is a manual written for King

Minrajagri that recalls the royal genealogy, extols virtuous kings, refers to ancient law and

practice and defends in particular the rigorous measures taken by earlier Arakanese kings

against heteropractic and heterodox monks (Leider 2004b). Keeping its religious bias in

mind, it is not surprising that the author reaches the conclusion that the scriptures had been

faithfully transmitted in Arakan since the time of Lord Buddha (for a detailed list of these

missions, see appendix 1). As stated above, this text whose origins go back to the early

seventeenth century, does not mention the request of King Vimaladharmasuriya I for

missionary monks.

In the case of the missions listed by the MRCT, our investigative attention is less

absorbed by the question of their historicity which rests on weak ground, than by the coded

significance of the claims that are made. For a king like Minrajagri, a warrior king who had

pushed the limits of his kingdom to an extent that went beyond the hopes of all his 25 Note that the Explanation on the Venerable Sasana of Arakan ascribes to this king a mission sent to Sri Lanka to re-establish the sasana!



predecessors, it was important to ascertain the purity of the religious tradition so as to

strengthen his cosmological legitimacy as a dhammaraja. As the continuity of authoritative

Pali texts was located in Sri Lanka, the “Sri Lanka missions” in the Minrajagri encode a

reference to a norm of textual accuracy that could warrant the continuity of the sasana in

Arakan. There is an unmistakable didactic stance in the Minrajagri‐satam as its author, a

minister, explains that earlier virtuous kings had sent missions to Sri Lanka to check the

accuracy of the scriptures. Little can be said on the historicity of such missions. The regnal

dates, even of a king like Dasaraja who appears as one of the greater kings of the Lemro

period (13th‐14th c.), cannot be ascertained on the basis of epigraphic evidence.

At this point we may conclude that in some older Arakanese texts, it was clearly

understood that Sri Lanka was a stronghold of the sasana as its kings had faithfully preserved

the textual tradition. The reference to Sri Lanka stamped a mark of authority on a claim of

textual purity.

This remark concludes our examination of the little known Arakan‐Sri Lanka relations.

What does it mean for the understanding of the Explanation of the Venerable Sasana of Arakan,

written in 1872? The claim made in the Explanation regarding Arakan’s essential role in

preserving the sasana in Sri Lanka is unwarranted as it can not be substantiated by other

sources. Our analysis clearly shows that the anonymous author did not care much about

historicity and established facts, as he does not even mention, paradoxically, the well proven

exchange of missions in 1693 and 1696‐1697. We can thus briefly reformulate and bring to a

point our earlier interpretation of the Explanation.

In the nineteenth century, a quasi‐ideological war of rival claims raged among

Theravada monks about which kingdom could boast the truest transmission of the sasana.

These claims pushed into a defensive mood Arakan’s Buddhists who were just recovering, as

we have seen, in the middle of the nineteenth century from a long period of trouble. Judging

less from a historical then from a psychological point of view, the Explanation of the Sasana of

Arakan does not offer a balanced argument based on historical evidence, but impresses as an

exhibition of pride in the face of the boisterous demonstrations of the Burmese Theravada

seen and heard in Mandalay’s monasteries and temples.



Conclusion When we weave the three threads of this paper into a garland, we find that it is above

all an exercise in contextualization that gives us new insights in Arakanese Buddhism and its

historical or allegedly historical connections with Sri Lanka. The 1872 text that I have

occasionally called a pamphlet claims a legitimate transmission of the sasana in Arakan but

sketches the Arakan‐Sri Lanka connection in terms that lie beyond history and historical

context. It looks superficial and is neither well‐written nor reliable for an educated reader.

But that’s precisely why it is challenging us to understand the context in which it was written

and why it was written that way. In the second part, we have turned to a mosaic of bits of

information on Arakanese Buddhism in the first half of the nineteenth century. The

inescapable orientation of Arakanese monks towards reform‐minded Burma, on the one

hand, and the undeniable weakness of monastic education in Arakan, on the other, clearly

marks two poles of tension which co‐existed in an environment where, since 1826, there was

no more official protection for institutional Buddhism but an entirely new context of political

and economic stress.

Our analysis of the representations of religious embassies appeared first as an

exploration of fact‐bound records. But as we have examined the historical context of the best

known of the Sri Lanka‐Arakan monastic exchanges, we have seen how it rebounds on the

interpretation of the contents of these relations themselves. Well founded doubts on what

actually happened attended our exploration and textual contexts have raised questions on

the nature of historiography. Some embassies were real or may have been real, others appear

as fabricated purely for the purpose of religious legitimacy.

All in all, our exercise in contextualization leads to a decidedly richer picture of

Arakanese Buddhism that helps us to identify institutional change in its proper environment.

We have outlined a complex political framework that explains the conditions with which lay

practice and monastic institutions in Arakan had to cope. A key word that connects different

strains of our analysis is the quest for legitimacy. The coded reference to Sri Lanka as a

mainstay of sasana transmission, the superficial evocation of relations with Sri Lanka, the

listing of successive embassies with Arakan as either the giver or the receiver of religious

dispensation, the postulate of Arakan’s ability to revive Sri Lanka’s sasana are basically all



variations of the same theme: the need to legitimize the religious tradition in the eyes of a

particular audience of listeners or readers.

Our study raises also new questions that can be briefly evoked here and might lead to

more introspective research. One question pertains to religious missions as such. According

to the chronicles, they have played such an important role in the spread and the survival of

Theravada Buddhism. But how far can we trust claims that are made in our sources? Can we

critically examine if initial expectations and final implementation matched? Just how

religious and how political was such interaction?

Another important question concerns the unexplored relationship between the

Arakanese and Burmese sangha since the Pagan period. It is extremely unlikely that the

sasana in Arakan flourished in isolation and independently from the way that Buddhist

practice evolved among the Mon and the Burmese. But neither Arakanese nor Burmese

sources seen by this writer provide us with clear references to relations whose existence we

can reasonably assume. This lack of evidence underscores the importance of the claims made

with regard to Sri Lanka, as these relations are not only recorded, but also invented for the

need of legitimacy.

Is it safe to assume lineages connecting Arakanese and Burmese monks when there is

no clear‐cut proof? While we would like to believe that there were connections, we could

eventually end up, not with inter‐ethnic lineages, but rather with evidence of a mutual

distrust among monks coming from different ethnic backgrounds and superficially credited

with the opprobrium of heterodoxy. In the MRCT for example, Pyu and Mon monks who

allegedly followed King Alaungsithu’s troops to Arakan (12th c.), are said to have corrupted

the local monks.

These contiguous questions call for more fact‐assembling, they challenge our capacity

to outwit the messages contained in the sources and our creativity to give meaning to it all.

Future research can also show if the conceptualization of relations inside the Theravada

world fits rather with an inbound, self‐centred paradigm where outer relations are merely

codes for claiming legitimacy or an open‐network paradigm where institutional change,

doctrinal re‐alignment and intellectual exchange can be demonstrably contextualized in

receptive socio‐political frameworks.



Bibliographic references Explanation on the Venerable Sasana of Arakan, dated Buddhist era 2316. Palmleaf manuscript

(private collection, Sittway).

Report on the progress made in the Arakan division from 1826 to 1869. 1870. Rangoon:

Government Stationery. 53 p.


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Sri Lanka and the debate on the continuity of the sasana · 2014. 4. 26. · Sri Lanka and...

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